An English Murder [Paperback]

Cyril Hare (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2009

A classic detective story from one of the best-loved Golden Age crime writers, Cyril Hare, originally published in 1951. The setting of An English Murder seems, at first, to be a very conventional one. A group of family and friends come together for Christmas at a country house, Warbeck Hall. The house is owned by Lord Warbeck, a dying and impoverished peer who wants to be among loved ones for what he thinks will be his last Christmas. The holiday decorations are up and snow is falling fast outside. The guests range from the Lord's difficult son to a visiting Czech historian. There is, of course, a faithful butler and his ambitious daughter. But when the murders begin, there is nothing at all conventional about them - or the manner of their detection. This ingenious detective story gleefully plays with all of our expectations about what an 'English murder' might be and offers enough twists and turns to keep us reading into the night. 'Of Cyril Hare's detective stories my only complaint is, that they are too infrequent.' Tatler

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

By a long shot, the best crime story I have read for a long time. -- Irish Press --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Cyril Hare was the pseudonym for the distinguished lawyer Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark. He was born in Surrey, in 1900, and was educated at Rugby and Oxford. A member of the Inner Temple, he was called to the Bar in 1924 and joined the chambers of Roland Oliver, who handled many of the great crime cases of the 1920s. He practised as a barrister until the Second World War, after which he served in various legal and judicial capacities including a time as a county court judge in Surrey. Hare's crime novels, many of which draw on his legal experience, have been praised by Elizabeth Bowen and P.D. James among others. He died in 1958 - at the peak of his career as a judge, and at the height of his powers as a master of the whodunit. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Dales Large Print; new ed of large print ed edition (April 15, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 1842626582
• ISBN-13: 978-1842626580
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Superb English Mystery by Cyril Hare - Engaging, Intelligent Plot, October 15, 2006

By 

Michael Wischmeyer (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An English Murder (Paperback)

An English Mystery (1951) is one of those remarkably good English mysteries that remains as fascinating and enjoyable today as it was decades ago. Inexplicably, the author Cyril Hare (pseudonym for A. A. Gordon Clark, a distinguished English judge) is not well-known, and yet his stories are uniformly excellent. Fortunately, many of his mysteries have been reissued by Dover, Harper-Perennial, and most recently by House of Stratus.

An English Mystery offers everything that might be expected in an English mystery. Relatives and guests gathered together for the Christmas holidays find themselves snowbound in a remote country manor. Their host is an aged peer, still aristocratic, although his family has suffered gradual decline, even impoverishment. And, of course, there is the faithful butler.

In Cyril Hare's hands, these traditional elements are melded into an exceptionally good story, notable for its fascinating characterizations, it decidedly intelligent plot, and for its surprising, and satisfying, deductive solution.

An English Mystery makes a great introduction to the literate, intelligent, and yet completely enjoyable stories by Cyril Hare. I also highly recommend three other mysteries by Cyril Hare: Untimely Death, The Wind Blows Death, and Suicide Excepted.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Only in England..., June 6, 2011

By 

Colonel Zagbar - See all my reviews

This review is from: An English Murder (Paperback)

This 1951 novel is easily the best I've read by Cyril Hare. It begins in a seemingly traditional setting, as the aging, feeble Lord Warbeck invites several guests to his country estate for Christmas. Among them is the peer's neo-fascist son, who does not endear himself to the other guests (including two people connected with England's ultra-liberal government and a Jewish historian doing research on the estate's past). The son is poisoned during a champagne toast at midnight on Christmas, and a raging blizzard has cut off the house's inhabitants from the rest of the world...

The mystery in this novel is especially good--despite a relatively small amount of suspects, I was completely surprised by the murderer's identity, but this was well foreshadowed throughout the story, as was the motive. Hare also provides some heavy satire of English life in the early fifties (notably the "socialist" politician who still clings to antequated British customs). The detective is the Czech refugee Dr. Bottwink, who provides ironic commentary on English cultural life throughout the book. And the title is quite accurate, by the way--this really is a crime which could occur only in England, as the motive for the murder involves a particular legal point which is unique to that country (the author was a lawyer who often included this sort of thing in his stories).

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A SATISFYING ENGLISH MYSTERY, July 31, 2009

By 

mari (CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An English Murder (Paperback)

I purchased this book in a used book store because it looked like it might be a good mystery and I have been reading a lot of mystery writers of the 30s and 40s and earlier. The previous review pretty much says it all without giving away the mystery. I am in the process of reading all of his books. TENANT FOR DEATH is a good mystery with a somewhat surprising twist and DEATH IS NO SPORTSMAN is interesting also for a picture of the British "system" of stream fishing rights and of fly fishing.